Sundance
by bellatrix08
Summary: The Cullens thought all was well in their small town of Forks, but what happens when an unsuspecting visitor arrives and changes their lives forever?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters in it_

**Chapter 1- The Awakening**

Trees, trees and outlines of more trees loomed the distance at which Gracie could see. She spun around slowly, taking in her surroundings. Her brow furrowed in confusion. Where was she?

Gracie took a few steps and stopped abruptly. She decided to retrace her steps. "Yes…" she said aloud to herself, agreeing. She thought back, and the last thing she could remember was pain. Horrible, excruciating pain. She shuddered at the thought. She never really did have a high pain tolerance.

She remembered back to when her and her best friend, Jewel, had one of their friends pierce their eat cartilage. Gracie, of course, went first. She was the braver of the two. She remembered the pain as the girl, Tally, shoved the not so sharp earring through her poor, tiny ear. She ran her finger over the other ear piercings that resulted after that. Absolutely none were done professionally, that was their rule, stupid as it may be.

Gracie shook her head; she needed to focus on where she was.

Suddenly, she heard a sound, a loud crack almost, thunder maybe, and people laughing and cheering. She took off to the sound. Not noticing the blur of trees whizzing by her, the fact that she'd never been able to sprint so fast didn't even cross her mind.

She slammed to a halt when she reached a clearing. Stopping so fast made her lose her balance, and topple over. She rose quickly, wondering why her fall didn't hurt in the slightest. She looked forward and saw eight pairs of eyes staring wondrously at her.

"Um, hello." Gracie said awkwardly. She was normally an outgoing person, but not so much when you had eight random strangers staring at you. She walked towards them.

"Who are you?" a man who looked to be around twenty-eight asked her stepping forward.

Gracie finally reached them all and stopped. She eyed each one individually. They were all ghostly pale, but it somehow worked for them. They were all beautiful. The farthest one on the right had shoulder length, wavy, dark brown hair.

"Bella." Gracie said aloud. The girl looked taken aback. How had she known her name? "Oh," Gracie said, her eyes widening when she realized she hadn't answered the gorgeous mans question. "_I'm_ not Bella. I mean, obviously, my name is Gracelyn Ashburry…" She stopped. She couldn't remember her last name. "Gracelyn Ashburry…" she tried again, no luck. She sighed. "I can't remember my last name." she said softly. Her bright eyes dimming and lowering.

"Are you a vampire?" the hot blonde man asked, eyeing her with pity.

"A what?" Gracie asked incredulously, her eyes wide and bright again, with astonishment. And she was worried that she was the weird one. That made the boy next to the girl named Bella laugh.

Gracie looked at him rudely. "It's not polite to laugh at someone when you just met them," eyeing him coldly. Then her infuriated expression turned to one of shock. "How'd you know what I was thinking, Edward?"

"How did you know that my name was Edward?" he said defiantly.

"It's rude to answer a question with a question." Gracie said nonchalantly.

"Welcome to my world." Bella said playfully, looking at Edward the way people only looked at each other in movies, when they were getting paid huge amounts of cash, and even then not that intensely. They had to be in love. "Aw." Gracie said. Then she threw her hand over her mouth. "Stop that…" she whined to herself out loud.

All eight of them eyed her curiously, as if she were a freak: something she resented being called. She couldn't remember a time in which she never felt like an outcast. Gracie was much in tuned to people's feelings. Almost like she could tell what they wanted, but never to this extensive level. She cleared her head quickly and noticed they were all still staring. 'I'm not a fucking circus freak…' Gracie thought to herself. Edward laughed again.

The older, yet still sexy, man stole a quick glance at Edward, who also was amazingly handsome, he nodded slightly. One never would have noticed it if they weren't paying extremely close attention. The man's eyes soften and he stepped closer to Gracie.

"Gracelyn," he started.

"_Gracie_." Edward corrected. Gracie gave him an odd look, cocking her head to one side. He laughed again.

"Gracie, would you mind coming back to our house to talk? I'm Carlisle by the way, this is my wife, Esme." he motioned to a beautiful woman with wavy auburn hair. She smiled at her sincerely. She wanted Gracie to join their family.

'What the fuck…' Gracie thought. It was an affectionate gesture, really, but she'd never actually been wanted by a family before. It was, different. Edward smiled at her warmly.

"This is Alice and Jasper." Carlisle continued, gesturing to a cute, pixie like girl and a rugged, scruffy, also cute boy. The girl was excited about having a new sister, who loved shopping, and the boy was happy simply because Alice was. 'How cute!' Gracie thought smiling to herself. They must be in love too.

"Emmett and Rosalie." A perfectly built boy with kind eyes, and the prettiest girl Gracie had ever seen. Both wanted to know more about Gracie, and why Carlisle had invited her back.

"And you know Edward and Bella." Carlisle finished. Edward stared intensely at her wondering how she came to be. 'What an odd question to think…' Gracie thought to herself, which made Edward, again, laugh. Gracie then turned her attention towards Bella, who gave her a shy smile and she then looked up at Edward, dying to know what he was thinking. "Apparently, I'm funny." Gracie said answering Bella's question and crossing her arms. This made both Edward and Emmett bust into hysterics. The blonde, Rosalie rolled her eyes at them and walked over to Gracie. More like glided though, Gracie had never before seen anyone as graceful as this Rosalie.

"Come on, let's go to the house." Rosalie said kindly. Alice popped up and took Gracie's hand, and suddenly they all took off, trees whizzing by.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note:_

_Sorry it took so long! You know how things get around the holidays. No more deserts for me…except maybe when I'm done here! [;_

_Enjoy!_

**Chapter 2- A Tree Grows In Brooklyn**

Not even a minute had passed and suddenly Gracie slammed to another stop and fell over. "I really wish I'd stop doing that…" she mumbled. Gracie stood up and brushed off the leaves and twigs that were currently stuck to her dark washed skinny jeans. Alice helped to brush off her front.

"Oh. My. God. Are those Juicy Couture?!" Alice exclaimed, admiring Gracie's earrings.

"Yep." Gracie said grinning, and twirling the earrings. "I fell in love with them right when I saw them. I love funky stuff—like Juicy and Betsey Johnson."

Alice's eyes lit up. "Aw. Anchors are adorable." She said smiling. "And you are too! We're going to have _so_ much fun at the mall Friday!"

Gracie smiled, and then it dawned on her. "Um, sweet pea, today's Sunday." She finished giving Alice a look one would give if they saw, say Beethoven at an ACDC concert.

"Oh, I know!" Alice said bubbly. "Carlisle will explain everything when we get inside. You'll find that you and I are similar in a few ways actually." Gracie had never seen anyone smile as brightly as Alice did. She loved it.

Edward smiled at her encouragingly while he took Bella's hand and motioned for Gracie to follow Rosalie into the house.

She walked into a humungous room. It was simple, yet elegant, with lots of windows. All of the walls were white and the furniture was simple as well and fit with the rooms perfectly.

She followed Rosalie and Emmett into a formal dining room. They each took a chair, she watched as Esme and Carlisle took the heads of the table, then Alice, Edward, Emmett, and an empty chair. Across from Alice was Jasper, next to him, across from Edward was Bella, with Rosalie beside her across from Emmett, and another empty chair. She took a seat beside Emmett.

Gracie stared across the gorgeous dark mahogany table at the empty chair; she was the only one without a partner. If they ever had a big checkers tournament she'd be SOL. This thought made Edward grin. She folded her arms across her chest and sunk down into her chair.

"Gracie?" Carlisle's voice was like silk, so lovely. She looked up and realized she had been lost in her thoughts. She sat up abruptly and smiled at him sincerely. "Yes?" she asked casually. Edward stifled a laugh; she looked over at him and returned his grin from a few moments ago. At least someone thought she was funny.

"We asked you here because you seem strangely unaware of what you are." Carlisle said smoothly looking at her directly in the eye.

"Nope!" Gracie said coolly. "I know exactly who I am. My names Gracie, my interests are horseback riding, English preferably but I'd ride Western if I really had to, spring break trips to St. Thomas with my friends, reading, my cute convertible San Marino blue '09 Nissan Z Roadster, and shopping of course." She leaned back in her chair and gave Alice a high five and they both grinned at each other.

"Sadly, Gracie, that's who you were…"Carlisle said sympathetically. Gracie looked around and got suddenly nervous, she gulped loudly. Edward was about to lose it he was laughing so hard. Emmett looked at him annoyed.

"I've seen this movie…" Gracie said nervously. "And I don't make it." Emmett roared with laughter, the others also cracked up too. Esme looked at Gracie fondly. She wanted Gracie to be their comic relief.

"Well, actually," Carlisle began once the laughter died down. "You already did make it through. You're a vampire, just like the rest of us. You were bitten by another vampire and were left for some reason. You also seem to have a gift, I can't pinpoint quite what it is exactly…" he said in thought.

"She sees people's wants and desires, she can tell what they want at any given time and if it changes then she sees the change. If they don't know what they want, then she sees a blur of possibilities." Edward answered defiantly.

Gracie blinked at him and turned to look at Carlisle, "How are you going to tell me that I am no longer human? I mean, wouldn't I be like the first to know?"

"Not technically since you were left alone. No one was there to explain to you what you are." Carlisle explained watching Gracie's skeptics grow. "Have you felt a burning in your throat?" Carlisle asked raising his eyebrows. Gracie rubbed her throat and nodded.

"It's called thirst. We survive only on blood. Now there are two paths you can take as a vampire related to your eating habits—killing innocent humans to satisfy your thirst, or drinking the blood of animals, sort of like being a vegetarian." Carlisle explained.

"I'm a vegetarian, well I was before I became a vampire apparently. And I don't understand how killing innocent animals constitutes as being a "vegetarian"?" Gracie said putting air quotes around vegetarian.

"Because we're going against our natural diet." Carlisle explained. "Which you should already be good at."

"Okay." Gracie said breathing deeply and smiling. "I would like to be a vampire pretend vegetarian." Jasper and Esme smiled at her.

"Perfect." Carlisle said happily. He went through the rest of the explanation: The Volturi, how the Cullen's lived in peace with humans, he worked as a doctor in a hospital, while all of the kids attended high school over and over, how they moved away to a different area before people noticed that they didn't age, how no one (human) can know that they're vampires, and finally how thirsty Gracie will be for human blood for awhile. She listened intently, wondering if this was all a dream; Edward caught her eye and shook his head no.

"So," Carlisle concluded. "That brings me to our last thing. Where you will be residing: we would like for you to move in with us, be a part of our family." Carlisle said smiling warmly.

"You, all of you, want me to live with you? Really?" Gracie asked astonished.

"Why, of course!" Esme said. All eight eyes stared at her gently. She looked at each pair in turn. 'They really want me' she thought happily.

"I'd love to."


End file.
